


At the Sound of the Tone

by Eienvine



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-23 03:54:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21313753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eienvine/pseuds/Eienvine
Summary: Useful life tip #1: if you’re going to get drunk with your brother, hide your phone so he can’t talk you into calling your long-time crush and confessing your love.Useful life tip #2: if you ignored tip 1, keep in mind that sneaking into her house to delete the message off her phone only works on TV.
Relationships: Loki/Sif (Marvel)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 71





	At the Sound of the Tone

**Author's Note:**

> Just needed a quick break from the Regency era and the world of Agony and Hope. But don't worry (because I know you're all so worried), Agony and Hope will stay on its usual Wednesday-Saturday posting schedule.

. . . . . .

It’s all Jane’s fault, really, if you think about it.

In the normal way of things, Loki has nothing bad to say about his brother’s girlfriend—well, now fiancée. She is kind and brilliant and a reliable source of sensible conversation, which is a lot more than Loki can say about any of Thor’s previous girlfriends.

So even though he’s still a little surprised that notorious flirt and commitment-phobe Thor Odinson proposed marriage to a mousy physics professor, Loki is more than happy to welcome Jane into the family.

The point is, when he says it’s Jane fault, really it’s not anything that Jane did. It’s just the fact that Thor brought her along on this visit home, to meet his family and friends properly now that they are officially engaged, that’s causing the trouble.

And by “trouble,” I mean that Loki is feeling very, very single right now; every fond look, every touch, every kiss, every inside joke that Thor and Jane share, all serve as a reminder that he goes home every night to an empty apartment and a pile of paperwork. And that low feeling in his chest is only exacerbated by the knowledge that he and Thor are not the only ones in the neighborhood who came back to their hometown for their ten-year high school reunion that’s happening tomorrow, and that at this very moment, in the familiar gray house he can see out the kitchen window—

Loki just feels very single right now.

And this is trouble because late that night, when their parents and Jane have gone to bed, and Thor pulls out a six-pack of their favorite local beer “for old times’ sake,” Loki drinks a little too much. And this makes him a little too relaxed. And that makes him a little too unguarded.

(Loki has always been something of a lightweight, when it comes to drinking. The alcohol hits him fast and it hits him hard.)

And that means that when Thor, slightly more sober than Loki, says “You seem pretty down, what’s wrong?” and Loki says “I don’t know, I just feel really single right now” and Thor says “You know, I can’t believe you never dated Sif; I always thought you two would be perfect for each other,” and Loki says “I know!” and Thor says “What do you mean?”—well, Loki just sort of . . . word vomits, all over poor unsuspecting Thor, about how he’s been in love with Sif since they were thirteen and how she’s never even given him a second glance.

Fortunately, he’s too drunk to start panicking over the fact that he’s just spilled his most closely guarded secret.

Thor, to his credit, is immensely supportive of his brother; the pair were raised believing they were twins, and not even the discovery that Loki is actually adopted could make Thor stop loving him deeply and sincerely. “You should tell her!” he insists. “She’s single right now. Or she was when I talked to her last month.”

And to a drunken Loki, this seems like a brilliant idea. So he pulls out his phone.

All their friends from high school have kept in touch—they have a group text, as well as a Marco Polo group they’re all pretty active on, and they Snapchat each other—so it’s easy for him to find Sif’s number.

He dials.

It goes to voicemail; no surprise, as it’s after one in the morning now. So Loki musters all the eloquence he is in possession of and leaves what he feels certain is the most romantic confession of love that has ever been left on a woman’s voicemail.

When he hangs up, he turns to see that Thor has passed out on the sofa. That looks very nice to Loki, who flops down on his own sofa. In seconds, he is fast asleep.

. . . . . .

The morning of their ten-year high school reunion dawns cloudy and humid, but with a break in the clouds in the east, and the May sun that peeks over the horizon shines straight through the living room window and onto Loki’s face. He stirs, scowls, and swats ineffectually at the sunlight for a moment; when this fails to make it go away, he forces himself to sit up, intending to go close the curtain before passing out again.

His phone falls from the sofa to the floor. Grumbling to himself, he reaches down to grab it—then freezes, as memories from last night come flooding back.

“Oh no,” he says. “Oh no. Oh no no no no.”

But oh yes, there it is in his call history: last night at 1:24 AM, a two-minute call placed to Sif Tyrsdottir.

He really did it.

For a few moments, he considers his options. He can move to Guam. He can fake his own death, and then move to Guam. He can convince Thor to join him in pretending that the call was part of a drunken game of truth or dare, after which he can fake his own death and then move to Guam.

And that’s when he has an idea that’s even worse than all those:

He can just go delete the message.

To his addled, half-awake, aching brain, this seems like the perfect solution. Sif has always been an early riser, but she’s here on vacation; surely she’ll sleep in. And he knows where the spare key to her parents’ house is hidden, unless they’ve changed it in the last ten years, which they surely haven’t, because Tyr and Gná are way too convinced that nothing bad ever happens in their town, which is going to get them robbed someday.

Anyone who’s ever seen a movie or TV show could tell him that this is a terrible idea; in fact it’s the topic of one of his favorite episodes of _ Hey Arnold! _ But Thor is still fast asleep, and Loki is panicking. And without thinking it through any further, he sneaks silently out the back door and crosses through the gate into Sif’s yard.

There’s the key, under the big flowerpot on the back patio, where it’s been since Sif’s family moved in when Loki was ten. As stealthily as he can muster, Loki inserts it into the keyhole, turns, and pushes the back door open. It swings open without a noise—thank goodness they keep it well maintained—and he steps in and closes the door silently behind himself.

And in that moment, Loki realizes what an idiotic decision he has made. How is he going to find Sif’s phone and take it from her without waking her up? And if he gets his hands on it, how is he going to unlock it without her passcode? And how in the world is he going to explain himself if he gets caught? He should really go.

He turns back to the door, and that’s when he hears the very last sound he wants to hear: “Loki?”

Just his luck: it’s Sif, coming down the stairs, looking beyond adorable in her University of Florida t-shirt with her hair piled messily on top of her head. Maybe it’s their long-standing friendship, or maybe it’s that she clearly just woke up and seems a little disoriented, but whatever the reason, she doesn’t seem overly freaked out to see him alone in her parents’ kitchen at seven in the morning.

She does ask “Why are you here?”, though, a question he cannot possibly answer honestly.

“Uh . . . for a very good reason.”

“I’m all ears,” she says, reaching the bottom of the stairs, and that’s when he realizes that she has her phone in her hand. Maybe, just maybe, all is not lost.

“I have a gift for you that I was going to leave on your counter as a surprise,” he lies. “But when I got in here, I realized I’d forgotten to bring it.” Normally he’d never lie to Sif—one of the few people he can say that about—but, well, desperate times and all that.

It’s not a complete lie, though; he does have a gift for her back at his parents’ house. She mentioned in the group chat how much she loves Malcolm Gladwell, who gave a talk at a school near Loki’s work, so Loki went to the event and got a signed, personalized copy of his most recent book for Sif. That was three months ago, but Loki hasn’t seen her in person in absolute ages; he’s been working in Los Angeles and she works in Seattle and ne’er the twain shall meet. So he brought it with him on this visit to their hometown, knowing that he’d see her at some point—at the reunion, at the very least. No big deal; just a thoughtful, meaningful gift he’s been planning for months. Just the sort of casual, friendly thing a guy might do for the girl he’s loved for fifteen years.

Sif blinks at him, but then she shrugs and makes a little “Huh” sound as she pads past him into the kitchen. “Chocolate milk?” she calls back.

“Oh,” says Loki. “Um. You want me to stay?”

“Of course! I haven’t seen you in like a year and a half. Not in person.”

That she would want to spend time with him fills his heart like a balloon, and he obediently follows her into the front room, where they sit silently side by side on the couch and sip their chocolate milk. Sif seems tired still; her posture keeps drooping, and she is slowly tipping to the side, and every time she does she ends up a little closer to Loki. That proximity, along with the panic that she’s going to open her phone and see the voicemail from him, keeps him awake and alert despite the lingering fatigue and headache from his night of drinking.

The sky has clouded over completely now, and just as they’re finishing their chocolate milk, it starts to rain. “There,” says Sif sleepily, and leans fully against his arm, her eyes slipping closed, “now you have to stay.”

She really does seem tired enough that she might have dozed off. And there’s her phone, right there in front of him . . . but even if he could sneak it out of her hand, how’s he supposed to unlock it?

“How’s work?” she asks, her eyes still closed, and he jumps about a foot. Okay, not asleep, then.

“Honestly,” he says, “I’ve been cleaning up my résumé. It’s . . . getting worse.”

“Mmm. Come to Seattle. I need friends who aren’t just other gym rats like me.”

Despite his building anxiety, Loki chuckles. “How’s the job? Do you still like teaching people to punch strangers in the face?”

“It’s the best,” she murmurs sleepily. “You should let me teach you. ‘Sides, most of the people I teach just hit punching bags. Like for fitness.” Her last word is half-interrupted by a massive yawn.

“Why are you up so early?” he asks. “You sound exhausted.”

“Habit,” she mumbles. “Only I stayed up a little too late last night.”

“Hot date?” he jokes weakly.

“_School of Rock_,” she corrects.

That was their favorite movie in high school; they watched it at least once a month. “You should have called us,” he says softly. “We would’ve come over.”

“Thought about it, but I started too late. Movie didn’t finish until twelve-thirty. Besides, isn’t Thor’s fiancée visiting?”

“She could’ve come. I bet she would’ve been cool with it.”

Her only response is to hum sleepily, and Loki remembers the crush on Thor she used to harbor when they were younger. Maybe she doesn’t want to spend time with Thor’s fiancée. Maybe she never truly got over her feelings.

“Or not,” he says. “You don’t have to meet her.”

“Of course I have to meet her,” says Sif, her side of her face still pressed against his arm. It’s making his arm fall asleep. He wouldn’t move for the wide world. “She’s marrying one of my best friends. I need to make sure she’s good enough for him.”

Loki is silent.

“What?” she says after a moment. “I can hear you thinking.”

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

“Fine,” he says. “Just wondering. About you and Thor. Well, worrying, really.”

“You can’t see it because my eyes are closed,” she says, “but I am rolling them at you. I love Thor like a brother. And only like a brother.”

“That hasn’t always been true,” he reminds her.

“My crush on Thor was a hundred years ago. And I’m sorry I ever told you about it, given how often you bring it up. Look, everyone in Asgard went through a Thor phase, where they either wanted to date him or be him. Or both. It’s just a part of growing up with the god of thunder.”

“Stupid football nicknames. I can’t believe grown adults actually called him that.”

“Remember that cheer?” Sif asks, and sings softly, “Thooooor, god of thunder! Thor, Thor, Thor, god of thunder!”

“This town and their obsession with high school football,” he sighs.

“You’re just jealous that they never had a cheer for the person who could assemble the most perfectly matched all-black outfit. But you’ll always be the champion in my heart.”

“It was a phase,” he grumbles.

She snorts and moves in closer to his side, sitting up straighter just so that she can tip her head onto his shoulder. “You don’t mind me using you as a pillow, do you?”

“ . . . no.”

“So what about you?” she asks. “You dating anyone?”

He hesitates. “No. Not seriously. Not since Sigyn.”

Sif is quiet a long moment. “Like . . . you’re not over her?”

“I am,” he assures her. “I’ve just been insanely busy with work.” Plus he’s come to the realization that no matter who he dates, there’s a part of him that’s always waiting for Sif’s next Snapchat. But he’s not going to tell her that.

Speaking of: phone. This is still a major problem.

Sif hasn’t noticed his unease, apparently. “I miss this,” she says after a moment. “Spending time with you guys.”

“Me too,” Loki confesses. There was a whole gang of them who were really close in school: the Odinsons, Sif, Hogun, Volstagg, Fandral. (Well, except for that phase when Loki got really angsty and kind of low-level goth and refused to hang out with them for a while.) They were all as close as could be, and then they graduated and they all ended up at different schools. In fact, other than the Odinson boys, they all ended up in different states. And they try to keep in touch, but it’s different now. And it’s always going to be different now, no matter what.

Without thinking, he tips his head to rest it against Sif’s. She burrows even closer still.

Well, if she’s about to listen to that message and be so weirded out that she never speaks to him again, at least he’ll have this moment to look back on fondly.

For a long while they sit in silence, watching the rain outside as the day slowly lightens.

“You have big plans today?” Sif asks finally.

“A few,” he says, shrugging with one shoulder so as not to disturb Sif. “Thor wants us to take Jane on a tour of town. Show her all our old haunts. I assume he means all the buffets he got banned from for eating too much.”

He can hear the grin in Sif’s voice. “Or the dent in that dumpster behind the Food Town?”

“Do they still have the same dumpster?” Loki asks, surprised. “I don’t know who was more mad about that, Mr. Hœnir or our dad.” 

But Sif doesn’t laugh, and when Loki glances down, his heart leaps into his throat: she has turned on her phone.

“Loki,” she says, “did you leave me a message in the middle of the night?”

“Crap,” he mutters.

She lifts her head from his arm for the first time in a while. “Is that a yes?”

Maybe he can still play this off as a drunken prank. “Thor and I got really drunk last night,” he says, then hesitates. “Well, I did.”

“You always were a lightweight,” she murmurs. “And you left me a message while drunk? About what?”

He keeps his expression under control; he’s always been a good liar. But he has no control over the blood that is rushing to his cheeks.

“Are you . . . _ blushing_? Now I have to hear this message.”

Loki puts one hand over his face and waits for the world to end.

So he’s surprised when instead Sif just puts a hand on his shoulder. “If you don’t want me to listen to it, I won’t.”

He drops his hand in surprise.

“I mean, I want to. Like crazy. But I don’t want to make you unhappy. I’ll delete it if you ask me to.”

And he’s about to say yes, please delete it. But then . . .

Loki stares at her a long time, at the hazel eyes and delicate features that he has completely memorized but that still manage to mesmerize him every time, and thinks how she makes him laugh, makes him think, makes him feel. He thinks of how he has thought of her every day since . . . he doesn’t know how long. He thinks of how often he has worked up the courage to say _ something, _ anything, to her, and then immediately panicked and changed his mind. This, right here, is the closest he’s ever gotten to telling her the truth.

And he thinks of how friendly, how touchy-feely, how open she’s been with him this morning. Maybe . . . just maybe she won’t be furious. Maybe she’ll be okay with it.

Maybe she’ll even be willing to give him a chance.

He closes his eyes, bracing himself to do the bravest thing he has ever done in his life. “You can listen to it.”

He waits while she pushes a few buttons on her phone.

And then . . .

Mumbling.

He can hear what he’s sure is his own voice, but it’s muffled and garbled. The noise continues, incoherent, for a minute, and then it ends, and Sif laughs aloud. “Were you covering the mic the whole time?”

The tension in Loki’s shoulders dissipates very suddenly, and he sags like a marionette that’s had its strings cut. All that buildup, all that tension, all that worry . . .

All that preparation.

Because he _ was _ prepared, and now he is surprisingly ready for her to know. Somehow, this morning in Sif’s living room, the impossible happened, and for the first time in fifteen years, he was ready to tell her the truth. He suddenly realizes that for a moment, he _ wanted _ her to know. And . . . he wants her to know now. Even if she turns him down.

So when she says “What did it say?”, answering her honestly feels like the most terrifying thing he can imagine doing . . . but it _ is _something he can imagine himself doing.

Besides, even if it goes terribly, she lives eleven hundred miles away. She never has to see him again, if she doesn’t want to.

So Loki closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at her, which surely lessens the effect of the calm tone of voice that he’s attempting to conjure. “I said that I . . . like you.”

There’s a stunned silence. “You like me?” she finally repeats.

“Yeah,” he says, and steals a glance at her that shows him only that she is starting in absolute bafflement. He closes his eyes again. “Like, I _ like _ you. Like, I maybe kind of love you. Always have. Since junior high.”

She says nothing.

He says nothing.

She says nothing.

“Umm, could you say . . . anything? Because I’m freaking out.”

“Will you look at me?” Sif says. Her voice is even; apparently she’s not upset, at least. So that’s something.

He opens his eyes.

Just in time to see her lean in and press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. When she leans back, her eyes are sparkling with joy. “Ditto.”

The world around him seems to fade away as he stares at her. “Ditto?”

“Well, not since junior high,” she amends. “Maybe since . . . the beginning of our senior year of high school?”

“Senior year?” he repeats. “When I was a wannabe goth and I wouldn’t talk to you guys?”

“You look good in black,” she jokes. “And it’s not like you didn’t have a reason to be unhappy, what with finding out about the adoption then and all. But anyway . . . not having you around as much anymore, I really missed you. And I wondered why. And I realized . . .”

Hope fills his chest until he feels like he might burst from it. Can you die from being too happy? “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why didn’t _ you _say anything?

“Because you were always in the process of breaking up with or getting back together with Haldor,” he says flatly.

“Huh. Good point. Anyway, I didn’t say anything because you weren’t really talking to me then. And then by the time you’d made up with us, we were graduating, and then your parents took you and Thor on that long Europe trip, and then I was leaving for college. There didn’t seem to be any point in saying anything when we were going to be on opposite sides of the country.”

This is a lot for Loki to process. “You like me.”

“Yes.”

“Like, romantically.”

“Yes.”

“All this time?”

She shrugs. “I mean, since high school, it’s been sort of . . . in the back of my mind, rather than, you know, actively on my mind. But yeah. I’ve always regretted you—that nothing ever happened.”

“Were you ever going to say anything?”

“Were you?” she shoots back.

He hesitates. “Fair point.” The shock is finally fading from his mind, and it occurs to him that he is alone with the girl he has loved for fifteen years, and she is admitting she’s long had feelings for him. Why is he just sitting here?

He reaches out and takes her hand, taking a deep breath. “I think I am going to kiss you.”

Sif’s grin makes his heart skip a beat. “Not if I kiss you first,” she says cheerfully, and climbs onto his lap.

His heart is pounding a tattoo against his ribs, and he’s never felt so self-conscious in his life. “I might have morning breath,” he says. “I fell asleep on the sofa last night, so I didn’t brush my teeth.”

She rolls her eyes fondly and cups his face with her hands. “Shut up and kiss me, Odinson.”

So he does, hesitantly and carefully at first, then more enthusiastically as she leans very encouragingly into the kiss, her hands in his hair and her mouth warm and welcoming beneath his.

When finally the kiss slows, then ends, she loops her arms around his neck and rests her head against his shoulder, hmm-ing contentedly. “You know what?” she says.

“What?” comes the dazed reply.

“You do kind of have morning breath.”

Normally he’d feel terribly self-conscious about that, but she kissed him anyway—rather thoroughly, he might add—so he just snorts and pulls her closer. “You too.”

. . . . . .

And so it comes to pass that Tyr and Gná come down for breakfast that morning to find their daughter and the next-door neighbor fast asleep in each other’s arms on the sofa.

Loki stirs from his sleep to see Gná standing over them, taking pictures on her phone and grinning widely. “I always thought you two would be cute together!” she gushes when she sees him awake. “Turns out I was right.”

Tyr is a little more baffled. “I thought you liked the other brother.”

“Dad,” Sif groans, and with her face on Loki’s chest, the sound of her speaking vibrates through him. “That was forever ago.”

“So are you staying for breakfast?” Gná asks Loki. “We’d be happy to have you. Although your family might already have plans for your visit.”

“My family!” Loki realizes, and pushes himself up into a sitting position. Sif grumbles as she’s forced to sit up. “How late is it? They’re going to be so worried! I didn’t leave a note.”

“Oh, don’t worry, your mother knows where you are,” says Gná brightly. “I texted her a picture of you and Sif together.”

Heat rushes to Loki’s face. “Oh, good.”

“You’re not ashamed of me all the sudden, are you?” Sif teases.

Loki looks down at her—at the face he’s loved for so long—and for a moment he nearly forgets her parents are in the room. “Never.”

“Good. And look on the bright side: now you don’t have to worry about how to tell your family about us.” And then she hesitates, her usual confidence briefly wavering. “I mean, if there is, you know, an us.”

“I certainly hope there is,” Loki says immediately. “I have wanted this for too long to give it up so quickly.”

Sif’s expression is sweet and soft. “Good,” she says quietly. “Me too.” And she leans forward and presses a gentle kiss to his smiling mouth.

“You two are too adorable!” Gná gushes. “Frigga is just going to die at the video I just texted her.”

“Mom!”

. . . . . .

The two families end up combining forces for breakfast and for a leisurely morning spent chatting and catching up; as Frigga and Gná reasonably point out, they’ve always been close, but now they have even more incentive to do so.

Loki’s a little embarrassed at what feels like him taking over a visit that should have been all about the family getting to know Jane, but Jane actually seems thrilled about it; she quite likes Loki and is happy to give him the opportunity to spend time with his new girlfriend (Girlfriend! Sif! How is this happening to him?), and also she doesn’t love being the center of attention and is glad to have some of Frigga and Odin’s scrutiny off her.

Thor is so thrilled that his brother and his friend have found each other that to him, this is the best possible way to spend the day. Frigga, too, is tickled pink, having known of Loki’s crush all along (he’s never been able to keep anything from his mother). And Odin keeps giving his son and his son’s new girlfriend proud, warm smiles; either he was even more fond of Sif than they all realized, or he’s just really proud of his son for getting a girlfriend. Probably a bit of both.

And so Loki gets to spend the whole day with Sif: hanging with their families that morning, and then taking Jane on a tour of all their old stomping grounds that afternoon, and then showing up that night to their high school reunion with her on his arm while many of their classmates look on in shock and envy.

And late that night when they all head home, Loki walks Sif to her front door to bid her good night. Tomorrow they’ll start figuring out logistics; it’s nearly a three-hour flight from Los Angeles to Seattle, and they’re both pretty busy with work.

But for now he’s not thinking about that. For now, he’s thinking only of Sif nestled happily in his arms. He’s thinking of how he never thought he’d actually get to this point. He’s thinking that maybe he and Sif can just quit their jobs and they can stay on this porch forever.

“So, just to double-check,” Sif begins, “you broke into my house this morning so you could delete that message from my phone.”

He winces. “Yes.”

“Like in _ Hey Arnold!” _

“I thought of the same episode,” he confirms gravely.

She snorts. “Well, in the future, maybe just tell me the truth from the get-go. And maybe knock on the door and ask to be let in.”

Loki grins and pulls her closer. “The next time I need to make a drunken confession, I’ll do so to your face.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

It’s started to rain again, pattering softly on the porch roof. Loki’s heart is in his throat; he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to hear rain again without thinking of that perfect morning, and watching the rain fall with Sif half-asleep against his shoulder.

Good thing he has every intention of starting his new job search by looking for positions in Seattle. He’ll see plenty of rain there.

“So this has turned out to be a pretty good trip home,” Sif jokes.

“The very best trip home,” Loki agrees. “Can’t wait to see how our next visit will top it.”

Their next visit home will come on Christmas, and they’ll be announcing their engagement (fast, certainly, but they’ve known each other for eighteen years and loved each other for a large chunk of that time, and neither sees a need to wait). The next few visits after that will involve planning and then holding their wedding, and the visit fifteen months after that will be bringing their son to their hometown for his first Christmas. So those’ll be pretty great visits too.

But for now, this has definitely been the very best trip home.

. . . . . .

fin


End file.
